


The Early Hours

by thewatsonat221B



Series: To Rebuild Once More [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Fatherhood, Friendship, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewatsonat221B/pseuds/thewatsonat221B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John comes to term with things on the first morning home with his daughter, thinking about the days with Mary that would never come. He takes comfort knowing that he is not alone.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>John had never been a very large man, and the fact that she was only slightly bigger than his two hands together absolutely humbled him.  </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Early Hours

John startled himself awake early in the morning, flinching at the sound of his neighbour slamming a car door. The sun was bright through the windows, and John could see particles of dust floating over the empty half of the bed. He could hear someone making noise in the kitchen downstairs, but nothing through the baby monitor on the bedside table to his right. He squinted at the clock, counting back the hours from when he last awoke to check on her, and decided that two hours was long enough.

He passed down the short hallway to the bedroom at the front of the house, his eyes finding Mary's slippers piled one atop of the other by the washroom door, and his breath stuttered as he imagined her kicking them off minutes before going to the washroom as her water broke. Two days ago? Three? John had lost track of time.

He could smell the baby powder in the doorway of his daughter's room, and took a second for his eyes to adjust to the small light glowing from the night light that was there more for him than for her. The curtains were shut, and her room didn't get the morning sun, so it was still dark and peaceful. This was her first morning home, and though she was fast asleep, John had been in and out of the room every hour or two, just checking.

They'd play-argued about who would be on duty for night time soothing, whether it be for nappy changes, feeding, or simply pacing back and forth while holding the baby until she fell back asleep. Mary had often joked that John would wear grooves into the wooden floor, and John fervently wished they'd lived there long enough for Mary to.

He stood quietly next to the cot, his fingers curling around the upper wooden bar of the railing and his nails pressing into the wood. He could clearly remember the day when they'd purchased it; after a four hour trip to several stores in London, Mary had finally proclaimed this one to be worthy enough for their daughter. John's vision blurred slightly around the edges as his eyes unfocussed in the dark and his hands slid along the railing, fingers finding the small gouge mark he'd made at the edge of the rail, trying to use a small hex wrench to fit the pieces together. Mary had laughed at his frustrations, and had awarded him imaginary points for creative invective whilst building a cot.

John shook his head and chased away the image from his mind, slowly lowering his hand toward his daughter's face. He knew she was breathing, as he could see the little rise of her chest in the fuzzy yellow sleeping bundle she wore, but his paranoia of being a first time parent overrode his doctor's senses and John felt a compulsion to check anyway. A little wheeze of air hit his fingers, and John felt a measure of tension leave his chest.

"Mary, she's beautiful," he whispered, his sentence punctuated by a cabinet banging in the kitchen below. Another bang, this time from something that had been dropped, and the baby startled awake. His hands were there instantly, reaching for her and cradling her, bringing her up against him. John had never been a very large man, and the fact that she was only slightly bigger than his two hands together absolutely humbled him.

 The baby gave a shaky wail, short bursts of noise and loud inhalations of an infant still too new to get a proper rhythm going. He held her to his chest, fingers rubbing softly on her back and whisking up against the tiny blonde hairs on the back of her head. John turned toward the rocking chair in the corner of the room, settling down in it and carefully moving his daughter to cradle her closely. The chair creaked as John relaxed against the wood and he could still smell the plastic packaging scent that had stuck to the chair when they'd unpacked it. The smell irritated him, but he knew before long that it would be replaced with smells of baby powder, nappy cream, spilled milk, and likely sick up as well. But it would never smell of Mary, and that thought seared across his brain and left pinpricks of unshed tears in his eyes.

 Eight months of anticipation before their daughter was born, and six hours was all Mary had.

 John swallowed roughly as he stared down at his daughter, who had settled quietly in his arms and was staring up at him with glittery dark eyes. John didn't know yet what colour they'd end up as, but he hoped they were the same blue as Mary's.

"Does she need a bottle?"

John's gaze never broke from the baby's, but he didn't startle as Sherlock had made enough noise coming up the stairs that John had heard him. He still didn't look up though, because if he didn't, he could imagine that Mary was standing beside Sherlock, looking over John and the baby with the fond warm smile that she had.

 "No."

Sherlock remained in the doorway and the silence stretched not quite uncomfortably between them for a few moments. When John finally looked up, he couldn't help a small smile breaking across his face at the sight of Sherlock. He was still wearing the same clothes that he had been the night before, and John would have bet his entire army pension that Sherlock had been awake all night. But he was holding a bottle in one hand, a dummy in the other, and had a small blanket draped over his arm. Sherlock looked down at the items in his hands and shrugged.

 "Maybe, I don't know," John admitted. His daughter scrunched her face up at him, before dropping her mouth open in a not quite yawn. "I don't know that I can do this."

Sherlock put the bottle and dummy down on the changing mat on the dresser, and picked up the nappy cream tube as if he was going to read the instructions, instead of just looking at them to avoid making eye contact with John.

 "You've been to war and lived with me. Of course you can do this."

The baby grunted, and John inexplicably felt reassured by Sherlock's slight arrogance. Sherlock continued to fiddle with the tube, and the stack of nappies on the table that John could not remember putting there. Maybe he hadn't; maybe they had been one of the last things Mary had set up in the room before their daughter was born. He closed his eyes and pursed his lips, forcing himself not to thing about the fact that Mary had spent days setting up this new sanctuary for their baby and never got to see her in it.

"Sometimes," John started, swallowing when he heard his own voice breaking, "sometimes I wonder what horrible thing I did to deserve all this."

He was angry, and would be for a long time that after such a hellish start to his marriage, and his decision to forgive his assassin wife without looking at her past, that everything had crumbled to pieces. John had prepared himself for old targets to come after them, or a scorned client or two, or even a competitor in the assassination game. He'd never imagined that a fucking aneurysm would take Mary from him, right before his eyes when he could do absolutely nothing to save her.

"Let me hold her a moment?"

John blinked rapidly as he stared up at Sherlock, who had somehow moved from the changing stand to right in front of him without John noticing. The baby was transferred carefully, and John's eyes focused completely on her the entire time as he rode the wave of fury that flashed through him.

"Perhaps it was never about you," Sherlock said, one of his curls falling downward out of his style as he looked down at the tiny blue eyes peering at him. John was fairly certain he'd punch him if Sherlock told him that this was his fault, his choice, again.

"I don't believe in fate, but you could have just been a bystander to Mary's ill fortune."

Which was all well and good for Sherlock to say, but John had still chosen to _stay_ with her after finding out a little of who she was. John sagged into the rocking chair as Sherlock spoke, the nearly three days with only scarce sleep catching up to him like a bludgeon. They'd only left the hospital eight hours earlier, and twelve hours ago John had still been part of a family of three.

"What about Alice, for the name?" John asked, changing the subject completely because he absolutely did not want to even think that this was some sort of cosmic vengeance for what Mary had done in her former life.

"AGRA," Sherlock over-pronounced, his fingers curling into the blanket that was wrapped around the baby. John could see that her little mouth was opening in closing at random, as if she was trying to figure out how it all worked. Her eyes were still focused at the tall creature holding her who, John readily admitted, was a wonder to look at. "Mary's real name?"

"I don't know," John confessed, drumming his fingers aimlessly on his thigh. "I only know that it started with an A."

"Pick another one, then," Sherlock imperiously said. "I know you like these romantic gestures, but you don't want to wonder if you picked the right name every time you look at her."

John sucked back air and stood up, his fingers gripping the arm rests of the chair hard enough that the skin on his knuckles turned white. Sherlock was being his normal blunt self, but John wasn't much in the mood for it.

"God you're an utter dick," John muttered, exhaling his irritation out. The baby's face was still scrunching up and out, turning slightly pinkish, and it took John an embarrassingly long few seconds to realise that she'd need a new nappy soon.

"Rosie?" Sherlock suggested, handing her back to John.

"Infamous criminal?" John asked, putting her down on the changing mat and starting to unwrap the fleece sleeping wrap.

"Scientist," Sherlock corrected, shaking his head. "Rosalind Franklin."

He reached down to trace his finger over her foot, and she involuntarily kicked him. Sherlock's fingers were even larger that John's, and Sherlock smiled as she continued to kick at his tickling touch.

"You realise you can't ever leave us," John told him, whisking his own fingers over the baby's now bare belly.

He could see out of the corner of his eye that Sherlock straightened, and John could just picture the confused look on Sherlock's face.

"I will need to return to Baker Street shortly. Clothes, cases –"

"Shut up," John said, though there was no heat to his words. His lip was turning up into a smile that John felt he didn't deserve so soon after Mary's death. Though he was amused at Sherlock, John turned his unearned happiness into focus on changing the nappy. Mary had always teased him about nappy changes, and they'd made a ten quid bet that even though John was an experienced doctor, he'd still be overwhelmed by the smell.

John was fairly certain that a baby couldn't come close to some of the smells and mess that Sherlock was able to produce in his experiments in the flat.

"I meant… you can't pull the shit you did last time. No going off on your own, no faking your death, no shooting anyone," John explained, readying his supplies. She looked like she was finished, but John couldn't entirely be certain.

"That hardly seems fair. You shot someone," Sherlock argued. He'd stepped a little closer to John, and John wasn't sure if he was just observing John's work or if he'd never seen a baby changed before.

"Not in front of witnesses," John stressed. "Rose will need both me and her godfather, out of jail, to raise her."

"Godfather?" Sherlock repeated, and John glanced up to see Sherlock's stunned, rapid blinking expression and had a flashback to the day he'd asked Sherlock to be his best man.

"Yes, godfather. You," John said, gently trying to wrestle the nappy off of the baby. He knew now that he had to spell these things out to Sherlock, and he felt no guilt whatsoever in finding it slightly amusing.

Once again, the room was silent as Sherlock took his time processing that.

"Is that all right?" John asked, carefully setting the new nappy in place. The smell was off-putting, but certainly not the worse he'd ever experienced. "Mary and I talked about it before, when..before."

"I," Sherlock started, and then his mouth pinched together and John knew his brain was reordering itself. "She is a tiny human," Sherlock answered, and his tone wasn't so much awed by her cuteness, but rather by her potential for being studied. John supposed there was a bit of awe in there too, though.

"Yeah,” John said, picking Rose up and pressing a kiss to her forehead, over the light hair that was the same colour as Mary's. “Yeah, she is."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This might be part of a friends to lovers thing. I haven't decided yet.


End file.
